


Flint and Tinder

by deuil



Category: Lupin III
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-01
Updated: 2015-03-01
Packaged: 2018-03-15 18:32:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3457442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deuil/pseuds/deuil
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The magic word is "this time". Jigen and Lupin and fights.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Flint and Tinder

**Author's Note:**

  * For [huffspuffsblows](https://archiveofourown.org/users/huffspuffsblows/gifts).



It's the little things. The 'why-didn't-you's, the 'you-never-listen's. Sometimes it's something as inconsequential as leaving a gadget in the wrong place, sitting on a spare Borsalino, setting a coffee-stained mug on the edge of a half-finished schematic. The two of the are like wildfire, which is what happens when people stay with each other for too long; for every seed they sow together, for every tree they plant with patience and compromise, they make as much tinder, and it burns, burns, burns.

 _This time_ , is the magic phrase. _This time_ , it's personal. You've done it _this time_. You're not getting off the hook _this time_.

(Then don't put up with it every other time, Lupin'd said a few minutes ago, chair upturned and dinner quickly cooling on (stolen) porcelain plating. If you'd actually say something instead of grumbling and 'putting up with it', listen to yourself—)

The little things add up, and they culminate. This time, Lupin is lucky: he gets out with only one well-placed right hook to the jaw before Jigen tells him to get the fuck out, a perfect slug delivered by knuckles hardened from decades of practice, of nails curled into palms, before he's dismissed. Forcibly. 

Asshole.

I wasn't wrong, is what Lupin thinks to himself as he pulls the Fiat out of their garage and nurses his aching cheek, rolls his ride out and away from their hideout where he can hear the gunman tossing still-full plates into the sink. It was just a joke, maybe Jigen should have thought about _not_ using a full bottle of his _Chateau Le Pin_ for that stew, maybe explained why it was so important instead of saying vague bullshit like 'you should know', and besides— this isn't even the first time he's ever complained about Jigen's cooking, so why choose today, of all days, to get so angry?

The car feels too big without Jigen to fill its seats and windows with smoke, too clean without scuffed heels to leave polish streaks on the dashboard. He thinks about apologizing for a brief moment but the time's passed, the opportunity missed to console that brick wall of a man with sweet words and smoky bourbon, and truthfully— a chance left untaken is even more infuriating to think about than the fight itself (if it can even be considered one, squabbling over stew).

Remorse prompts him to reach inside his jacket pocket for his phone, but the sentiment is quickly replaced by a mounting anger when the display announces, predictably, that there are no new texts to read, no voicemails he can listen to so he can turn this goddamn thing around.

Stubborn shithead.

His phone makes a dull sound somewhere against the upholstery of the back seat where he's tossed it. One thing he won't worry about for the rest of the night.

 

***

 

After his third glass of whiskey and a shot of tequila, Lupin feels like shit. 

The bar is overcrowded tonight, full of couples and people who are exactly like him, thrown out for one reason or another and trying to score some affection in conversation, in careless words that mean as much as tissues to blow your nose with. The recognition of those similarities sits in his gut like bile, and Lupin slams down a fifty before wandering back out into cold streets, shuffling feet through dark alleys and worn walkways lined with a rainbow of chewed-up gum and empty candy wrappers. Bits of human residue, how glamorous.

During his trek back to the Fiat, Lupin tries not to think about what Jigen is doing right now, and realizes that trying not to think about it is the same as thinking about it.

As he reaches inside for his pocket and realizes that he left his lighter back at base, he tries to think about the warmth of a kiss or the heat of limbs in limbs, and realizes that the chapped, dry lips he's recalling, the hard angles of elbows and knees, are Jigen's. 

When he finally gives in, rubbing cold hands together for friction that he doesn't have, he relinquishes himself to his guilt, which he doesn't consider a defeat as much as a selfish need to fill in the gaps. He wasn't wrong, but he wasn't right, either— so he gives up trying to be angry. It just seems like a waste of time.

And as he walks with a renewed resolve, solid footing taking him to the familiar yellow outline of his ride, there's snow in the air; falling from the endless black of the sky to pepper wet pavements in fleeting white. His breath coils like smoke from an invisible cigarette, and instead of Gitanes, he finds himself craving Pall Malls— that thick tar on Jigen's breath as he cranes his neck back and groans _Lupin_ , those ashy sighs that melt into the folds of Lupin's lapel when Lupin jostles him, sinks him into mattresses.

It's the little things.

This time, when he turns his phone on and sees that his messages are still blissfully empty, sees the familiar home screen looking up at him with an exasperated air of technological neutrality, it's only affection that greets him: _stubborn bastard_.

The snow is starting to fall thick, and Lupin knows that despite it all, Jigen will be inside, in the living room and huddled in the cold, to honor the agreement that if one of them is absent, they'd keep the heat off to save gas.

 

***

 

"Jigen-chan."

Silence. 

"Jigeeeeeen-chan."

Silence. Quiet feet plod through darkened rooms until he finds the person in question, bundled in blankets in subzero temperature, curled on the couch with his back to the door.

"Jigen."

Silence.

"Jigen."

The chair springs creak under added weight, but still: silence.

"I'm hungry," Lupin says as he sifts through the soft barrier that Jigen's made, worms his fingers through padded defenses to reach the sullen figure tucked within. "You have any of that stew left?"

 

(The grand mystery of the stew: a promise made ages ago, to use million-dollar dishes to serve Grandma Lupin's famous recipe. He can't believe he'd forgotten.)

 

All Lupin receives in return is the quiet sound of Jigen's breathing, a chin turned away, lips drawn into a tight line. He knows he shouldn't, but he laughs— it's the little things— and leans in to plant a kiss against that downturned mouth, keeps kissing until Jigen shifts in annoyance and tries to break free from his own confines.

'Don't put up with it', Lupin'd said, but he knows more than anyone that he loves it when Jigen bends, when that steel grate comes up and a calloused hand reaches out to settle on his heart. 

"Go starve," Jigen finally says, his breath white from the lack of heating, and Lupin laps the steam from his mouth with a hum, with a self-serving: "mmhm, I'm _starving_."

It's the little things. It's the sigh, the grunt, the untangling of legs and the cracks between artificial layers. The 'I-wasn't-wrong's, the 'I-know-why's, and the 'I-love-you's, silent but all-encompassing, and they, like so many things about them, add up and spark and burn, burn, burn, like wildfire.

"Jigen," he sings, and the magic phrase is _this time_ again, _this time_ , I'll forgive you, _this time_ , I'll let you.

Lupin kisses Jigen as he pushes him into the cushions, feels the heat build from where Jigen touches him, from that bruised jaw with the outline of Jigen's knuckles still etched into it.


End file.
